Tim: In a couple of days time, we’ll know the performers who’ve made it to next year’s Melodifestivalen; shall we celebrate with another trip to the Best Of?
Tom: Good grief, that sounds a lot like ABBA.
Tim: It really does, yes. The year is 2001, and this stormed to victory, favourite of both jury and viewers, despite a slightly sloppy hand-against-the-waist clapping at the start. And it’s not a bad track, is it?
Tom: It’s not at all, but that’s because it sounds like an ABBA track, even down to the piano. That’s a compliment, by the way: it sounds like a decent ABBA track.
Tim: Immediate hefty introduction, big singalongable chorus (if you fancy an English version, have Listen To Your Heartbeat, the translation that placed 5th at Eurovision) and while a key change might have been welcome, it works well enough for me without one.
Tom: I’m still of the opinion that any song like this works better with a key change, but yes: it’s a good enough melody that it works without one.
Tim: I say jury and viewers, it was also Belgium’s favourite back in 1996, or at least the writers of Belgium’s Eurovision entry for that year certainly thought so, and if you listen to the chorus of that you may think they have a point.
Tom: It’s certainly close, but surely you’d have to be particularly thick to plagiarise a Eurovision song from Eurovision?
Tim: Yes, and given the prolificness of the songwriter involved I’m inclined to doubt it; whether it was or not we’ll actually never know, though, as when the Belgians threatened a court case in 2003, a financial agreement was swiftly agreed.
Tom: I wonder if ABBA thought about doing the same thing.